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Are women eco‐friendly? Board gender diversity and environmental innovation
Author(s) -
Nadeem Muhammad,
Bahadar Stephen,
Gull Ammar Ali,
Iqbal Umer
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
business strategy and the environment
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.123
H-Index - 105
eISSN - 1099-0836
pISSN - 0964-4733
DOI - 10.1002/bse.2563
Subject(s) - gender diversity , business , diversity (politics) , endogeneity , harmony (color) , sustainability , porter hypothesis , socialization , environmentalism , eco innovation , industrial organization , environmental regulation , economics , corporate governance , public economics , political science , ecology , sociology , art , social science , finance , politics , law , visual arts , econometrics , biology
As a result of recent climate change impacts, environmental sustainability has received enormous attention from scholars and policy makers. Environmental innovation is one of the major ways of acting in harmony with the environment, but it also requires a significant amount of resources and strong corporate commitment. As boards of directors have great influence over the strategic direction of firms and are responsible for corporate environmentalism, we examine the likely relationship between board gender diversity (BGD) and environmental innovation measured as process innovation and product innovation. Based on a relatively large dataset (10,334 firm‐year observations) of U.S. listed firms, we find that BGD has a significant positive association with environmental innovation. Furthermore, we also find that this relationship is more pronounced in less profitable firms and in environmentally sensitive industries. Our results remain robust to endogeneity issues and alternative proxies. We interpret our results under upper echelon and gender socialization theories and suggest important implications for policy makers.